


Letters to a memory

by PipeKirkland



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Letters, M/M, Married Couple, Married TsukkiYama, POV Tsukishima Kei, Presumed Dead, Protective Tsukishima Kei, Reincarnation, Sad with a Happy Ending, Time Skips, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21871855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PipeKirkland/pseuds/PipeKirkland
Summary: ...To whom it may concern:I want to talk to you about my husband, whom I have always known [...]
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	Letters to a memory

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Carta al Recuerdo](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/543610) by meenamoredeunpinguino. 



> So, hello English fandom ;D  
> I apologize for this, but I wanted to make real my experiment. 
> 
> This is a translation of my own fanfiction, written originally in Spanish. As you may have realized, English is not my first language and I'm still trying to get better at it. I decided that this might be a good practice. So I'll be translating and adapting my favorites fanfictions to reach some other audiences. Hope you like it and that you can provide some feedback if necessary. I tried my best, It took me 2 days xD
> 
> I also add some new sentences to the original work.
> 
> I'm sorry for the angst--- or not.

December 25, 2023. Toronto

To whom it may concern: 

I want to talk to you about my husband, whom I have always known. I would say literally for longer than I can remember. On the contrary, he claims to remember most of our moments together: he says he can see, as if it had been yesterday, that first meeting of ours. It was that day when I called him "pathetic" for being intimidated by a group of social misfits. He was a cry-baby but intelligent boy; or so Tadashi says. He also says that he remembers how a week later he appeared before me to tell me that he was very grateful for my treatment towards him, although in reality I had not done anything specifically _for him_. He joined my volleyball team and we started a friendship with some compliments. Incidentally, I no longer remember his face at that time and, if asked directly, I also don’t remember in which park the event happened.

I do not remember (or I do, but very vaguely) details of our visits to the mountains to collect insects or the afternoons we spent studying with my older brother. I do not retain too much information about his attempts to comfort me after learning what a liar my brother turned out to be. None of that I can remember exactly, but Tadashi even remembers, exaggerating a bit, what clothes we were wearing. For my part, I am sure that if it was not because my husband forces me to meet them every time we travel to Japan or with Kageyama when he arrives with the Japanese national team to play here in Toronto, I probably would have already blocked from my mind my former high school classmates. Although, deep inside me, I must admit that it was not such a horrible period of my life.

Tadashi usually complains about these things to me when we are alone talking about past experiences. He keeps saying that I am inconsiderate for being able to remember complicated chemistry formulas, but need an alarm on my cell phone to know when his birthday or our anniversary is approaching. I excuse myself by saying that my work as a researcher consumes much of my brain capacity, but he is ceasing to believe me. The real problem is that the origin of my bad memory has a much more mystical background and that it has been challenging my rational understanding of the world for years.

It was about six years ago that those dreams began, during a really busy stage of my third or fourth year of college. Ironically, I don't know the specific moment anymore. The first time it already felt very real, but as they continued they intensified even more. I could feel oddly familiar smells and woke up with the sensation in the hands of everything I touched. I was able to recognize and anticipate the next thing that would happen and, of course, understand each word even if they were not always in the languages I currently speak.

On the first dream, I was boarding a barge with some scrolls and metals in hand. I wore light clothes that I now recognize as Egyptian, and my skin was much darker than it is now. However, at no time did I doubt my existence. I approached him and spoke to him. Apparently, he was in charge of the burden of slaves and I was nothing more than a merchant who brought more of that human merchandise. However, it was not the sensation of having a heavy chain with which I guided two men tied by the wrists that caused me to shiver when I woke up. It was the fact of having recognized Yamaguchi only for those freckles scattered in strategic places of his face. There was no other similar feature; only such Asian-like eyes marked by makeup but no more. With the years passing and the never-ending dreams, I have understood that in every life our appearances change but, in Tadashi, that freckled trait that I love so much remains. I think that is the most logical reason that every time, as soon as I see it, I am attracted to him.

On that Egyptian occasion, we sailed together for weeks. The feeling of time passing is given to me by certain changes in the atmosphere that surrounds us in these illusions, but again I don't know small details. I confirm that he is the same Tadashi because of his personality. It is not so different saving naturally socio-historical concepts (my Tadashi would not be around selling people), but our strange attachment despite my appeal for almost any human remains with the centuries. I noticed that because of our second meeting, probably in some Mesoamerican culture.

These data are not clear, but the clothes we wear and the climates that I have been able to see give me a remote idea of where and in what period of the earth we are. And another thing I discovered is that not everything could be honey on flakes, obviously. I am not a realist for no reason. That time we seemed to be simple hunters, and we didn't even belong to the same tribe, or whatever they are called (now I can't ask my favourite archaeologist). I could tell that I always kept myself away from others in my same caste but the love between us was the same, I could recognize it in his eyes. I saw both of us holding secret meetings in some glade in the jungle. Or so I believe it was, based on the fruit aroma that was felt and the monkeys that could be heard screaming around.

This time it lasted several dreams where I knew a little more of our stories in general terms, never irrelevant details. I could not, for example, know the colour of that bird we heard singing while, between kisses, we bathed together in a crystalline lake. But what I can never erase from my memory is his cry. The one he let out when he died at the hands of my tribe when we were caught and he was taken prisoner. Then I don't know what happened to me, but I don't really care either.

With the following dream of us, during the late Middle Ages, as members of a German town called Bremen and working together in the countryside, I realized the truth of this madness. Thanks to the records of the highly acclaimed printing press. On that occasion, I like to assume that I looked more similar to my current me, although I have never found out what my appearance was beyond the height of Tadashi, or the colour of our skin. He looked gorgeous being blond and with those bright green eyes, to tell the truth. I knew that my husband was named Adelfried and it is the only time they gave me a name, (Eldwin), to remember. Knowing that and forcing myself to memorize that we were from such a place, I took on the task of finding mentions of ourselves in history. I don’t know if they were real or exacts, but there were records of two men arrested for sinful acts and death certificates, by hanging, of one of them: me. It was not okay being together. The horror was such that for the first time I felt that my dreams were not such, but memories.

“Recordar” in Spanish means to _return to the heart_ a certain fact. Without a doubt it went through my heart again what happened in the next life, being again Native Americans, but from a town in cold areas during the late nineteenth century. This time, my dreams lasted for months; months where Yamaguchi reproached me a lot for being distant and too much involved in my investigations. What he didn't know was why I was like that. The reason almost took me to the edge of madness (and no therapist could try that): there was a photograph.

From my first dream of that third life, I remember little even though it was repeated for weeks. We were children who grew up almost together, hunting and sailing to fish. The glaciers were the only thing I can highlight. Again I knew it was him because of the freckles on his face, beyond dark hair and dark skin. His big smile was still there and he still called me by sweet nicknames. Later I could dream of a white man, a scientist, who was investigating the area. He surprised us in those love activities that societies over time very rarely have been able to accept. He sent us to be chained. This scientist had, now I can deduce, the maximum proof that the Native Americans were a missing link in the evolutionary chain and that they only acted on instinct, being little more than animals. He wouldn’t think that behind these “primitive and unnatural” acts there was only a deep and meaningful love.

What follows is somewhat confusing, and part of why I didn't keep record of it has to do with moving to Canada and my wedding with that current Tadashi, who was still worried about my recent lack of sleep. At that time I tried to stop thinking about it so much, trying to enjoy our honeymoon or whatever they say to the sexual vacations after a wedding. Unfortunately, not even there my past lives left me alone. The other “us” no longer appeared in my dreams but, as we toured a museum in Quebec, I found the irrefutable proof.

Very quietly, I was looking at those images telling stories about human zoos. Although anything related to the social sciences is Yamaguchi's specialty, at those times I was particularly attracted to that kind of readings. Something told me that I should look at them. Then it appeared. With a serious look that reflected pain, my past-self posed in that photograph.

For the first time, I had an awaken memory. The scientist had taken us to France and locked us in some acclimatization garden. We were separated by a large fence where Tadashi leaned daily to call me. I did not respond thinking it was safer. Then I don't know what it was, maybe a caregiver got into it, but they had attacked my partner. And I shattered and trellis to defend him. I remember the blows, those white men with weapons facing me. I remembered the fatal blow and how he was my last thought; he and the previous ones. My past self also remembered everything.

I opened my eyes as if waking up from a nightmare. I had passed out and Tadashi called my named desperately, wondering if I was okay. It was then when I understood that I could never tell him anything, that everything was true and my destiny was marked. Today I know that _my selves_ have always known about the others and that our mission is to find and protect him. We are destined for a tragic end: one of us dies first in each life, being young and in a violently way and, minutes later, the other follows. Our mission is to break this curse, reaching the end of our existence accordingly.

I cannot know if it will really be me who will fulfil all this. Lately, the current situation in the world is not the best, although it is the most tolerant. That is why I have decided to leave this letter written, so that my futures selves know where to look when they remember a fearful but tender Japanese, with the strength and fidelity of that friend that everyone would like to have. When they remember this cute man who knows when you need a scolding and when it is the best moment to make love.

I hope that if you get this letter, you will be as rational as we have been throughout history and get to rest in peace.

月 島 蛍

Tsukishima Kei

Appendix:

April 12, 2103. Brazil _._

I got the letter. I know you may find it too. My lovely boy has already gone; I’m just escaping now. Keep trying, I beg you. Let us rest in peace. This letter will remain where it has always been.

Lucas Costa

August 2, 2409. Malaysia.

I do not know how this is going to end. But if I can´t do it… just keep trying, please

Ariki Rama

May 18, 3005. Russia.

Tell my Ivan that I love him. Tell that to all of them.

Sasha Petrov

January 31, 3516. Spain.

So we finally got it, thanks to you. Just in time. I feel sick, but I am so happy. _Este es mi testamento, Ignacio. En nuestro hogar luego de ¿cuánto? ¿114 años juntos? Sí… al fin rompimos la maldición. Completamos nuestra vida feliz, y si te dejo hoy lo hago con nuestros hijos, nietos y bisnietos. Nadie que destrozara nuestro amor._ I love you and they have always loved you.

**Author's Note:**

> "This is my last will, Ignacio. In our home after.. how much? 114 years together? Yes ... we finally broke the curse. We complete our happy life. If I leave you today I do it with our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. No one to destroy our love"


End file.
